Walking While in Labor Doesn’t Smooth Childbirth, Study Finds

Some professionals think that strolling around during the early stages makes childbirth go more smoothly. Others believe just as adamantly that women should stay in bed.

But a large new study finds neither side is right: Walking during labor has no effect, good or bad, on labor and delivery.

“Like many issues where there are very opposing views, the truth was in the middle,” said Dr. Steven L. Bloom, who directed the study.

The study grew out of efforts to find a way to cut down on the number of caesarean sections at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, where Bloom is an obstetrician.

Some suggested that walking during labor would help do this. But when doctors looked at the evidence, they found only four small studies on the subject. Two found that walking speeds delivery; two found no difference.

Bloom’s team randomly assigned 1,067 women to walk during labor or to stay in bed. The study is larger than all the previous research combined. The results were published in today’s New England Journal of Medicine.

Seventy-eight percent of the women who were asked to walk actually did so, and they spent an average of an hour on their feet during the first stage of labor. They took an average of 553 steps, compared with 30 steps, mostly trips to the toilet, for women assigned to stay in bed.

Walking made no difference in the women’s risk of caesareans, in the duration of labor, in the need for pain medicines or in the babies’ health.

While walking doesn’t improve childbirth, it doesn’t do any harm either, Bloom said, so “there is no reason not to allow women to have that option during labor.”

Traditionally, those who favor walking argue that it might reduce discomfort and make the uterus perform better. Those on the other side say it’s safer for women to stay in bed, where they won’t fall down and can be monitored more easily.